Aside from their useful transparency, windows are rather dull. Samsung however, wants to change that.
Imagine yourself sitting indoors on a rainy day. You sigh melodramatically, look out the window and see nothing but overcast grey. Raindrops plink against the glass, and across the lawn you spy a squirrel chattering angrily at a crow. You watch the duo for half an hour, the crow cawing and the squirrel vocalizing in that chirpy squirrel voice that defies succinct description (but which you can all hear in your brain).
Even with all my flowery text that’s an incredibly boring afternoon. It’s too bad your window isn’t more entertaining, huh? Luckily, Samsung researchers have a solution.
The Korea Herald reports:
Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday that its researchers reported a breakthrough in light-emitting diode technology that will allow production of ultra-large advanced display panels on ordinary glass, such as window panes.
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology succeeded in fabricating nearly single crystalline Gallium Nitride on amorphous glass substrates, a milestone that will enable production of super-sized LEDs using glass substrates, Samsung said.
“In ten years, window panes will double as lighting and display screens, giving personality to buildings,” said a Samsung researcher who was part of the project.
The operative phrase in that quote is “super-sized LEDs.” Where traditional LED manufacturing yields 2-inch LEDS, this new method could create LEDs 400 times larger, for a fraction of the cost. Forget the idea of your bay windows serving as television screens, this technology could be used to create 100-foot high-definition monitors that are incredibly thin, cheap and relatively environmentally friendly.
Unfortunately, the Herald claims that this technology will need another decade of research before it’s available in consumer electronics.
Mark your calendars kids. 2021 is the year we play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 15 on a translucent monitor the size of a blimp.
Source: Korea Herald
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